A Saturday

Another one of those days. A day in the life...of 5 little ones + mom. A Saturday. The day in which we usually have pancakes for breakfast. Enough work for 2 parents to spread sugar and cut into bite sized pieces, extra busy when one parent is working. And that was today, Steve was working and really pancakes doesn't have to be a big deal if one is not in a hurry but I was trying to get out of the house early enough to meet someone in town for a pick up of calendars AND beat the crazy Saturday grocery rush. We were doing just fine. We had everyone dressed and in the van ready to go by 9:00. Not bad. But it wasn't until we got to Superstore and every body had already jumped onto the parking lot that I realized my purse was still sitting where ever I had dropped it to lace up my running shoes. Big Sigh.

Every body back into the van. Put seatbelts back on. Head for home. On the way home I saw a thrift store I had been wanting to stop at and so I pulled into the parking lot. "Mom, what are you doing!?" Leah demanded. "Just going to take a quick peek," I reassured her. "You don't have your purse," she reminded. Big sigh.

We got back to the store in time to see the lady we wanted to meet was just standing in line with her groceries. We waited Superstore line up time, transferred the box from her vehicle to mine and then proceeded to head into a much fuller, busier Superstore. With 5 kids.

They did all right.

Back home, did some work, ate lunch, did some more work, had a crash. Called up Steve at work to tell him he kind of needed to come home as I had to take Cody in for stitches.

Steve came home, I got Cody + washcloth + ice cube loaded into the van and we headed off for the Walmart walk in clinic. On the way there Cody told me he didn't like ice cubes and he was going to give it to the doorman. There was no convincing him the doorman didn't like ice cubes so I was quite realived when he crankily informed me the ice cube had fallen and he couldn't find it. Can you imagine? I mean, those folks at the door are friendly and usually great with kids but I'm sure Cody's bloody DNA'ed ice cube would have even thrown the best of them for a loop!

Nobody told me they weren't running the clinic at the same handy/crazy hours as their shopping hours and so by the time we got there the clinic was 2 hours past closing time. I still had a few errands to do so we got into the lineup at the customer service desk with a weepy head wound. True to form, after standing and waiting for 12 min. 34 sec. and 13 milliseconds we were informed they couldn't help us and we had to go over to the jewellry counter. Big sigh.

From there on it didn't go too badly and we were out relatively quickly and off to visit the ER. I wasn't taking any more chances on the clinics. Just as were were trotting across the parking lot I saw a van pull up to the doors and drop off a man with a bloodied napkin pressed to his head. He held the door open for us behind himself and I resigned myself to the fact that he was ahead of us.

But there wasn't a single other person in the waiting room. There were two receptionists and the one we got quickly got Cody on his way to the triage nurse. "What happened here?" the friendly nurse asked Cody. "He hit the corner of the table," I replied. "Walk into it? Run into it?" the nurse continued his interrogation. "Well actually it was his brother who jumped off the back of the couch that ran him into it." And he looked at Cody with a sympathetic grin.

Soon enough we were headed on our way back. "You're the only one here, buddy" the nurse informed us and my heart took a selfish leap of thankfulness. It wasn't like I was thankful there was no one hurting, it wasn't like I was happy for the ER staff that they were having a quiet afternoon. Nope, I was thinking total minutes until departure!

I heard the nurse inform the doctor that the other man was actually ahead of us but Doc shook his head and said, "let's get this little guy out of here." For the record it should be said that it was probably not Cody's mom's desire to get out of there but the fact that Cody, who was now okay with having a gash that dripped the occasional drop of red, was jumping on the bed having the time of his life. Doc was probably shaking his head thinking little guy first and stitch up his eyelid or other guy first and stitch up little guy's eyelid plus...

The sweet nurse gave him her little bendy bugs bunny to hold and proceeded to wrap him all up swaddle style to keep his little hands from doing more damage than good. Not that it did much good. That boy was FURIOUS! He screamed and kicked and wiggled his hands loose and arched his back and so I grabbed his hands with one arm and his legs with another arm and laid across him trying to keep him still while the nurse held onto his head for dear life and the doc put in three of the neatest stitches ever.

It took Cody a few minutes to calm down after he was unbundled but almost right away he started asking to see it in the mirror. Nurse kindly informed us there was a bathroom 2 doors down on the left and so we went trotting along to go check it out. Almost instantly that furious screeching started up again.

"THERE'S STILL BLOOD!" and he was ready to fire the doctor.

Doctor and nursed popped some tylenol and headed for the next bed, next set of stitches.

And I went home thinking, why was Mel W working when I needed her to stop practicing on bananas and start practicing on little boys? :)